WL's Georgics Page

Sustainability Significance - colony collapse disorder? invokes apollo? section subject to change

Sad Aristaeus from fair Tempe fled,

His bees from famin or diseases dead:

On Peneus' banks he stood, and near his holy head;

And, while his falling tears the stream supplied,

Thus, mourning, to his mother goddess cried:

'Mother Cyrene! mother, whose abode

Is in the depth of this immortal flood!

What boots it, that from Phoebus' loins I spring,

The third, by him and thee, from heaven's high king?

theoi - "his bees were lost through sickness and hunger, sorrowfully stopped beside the sacred fount at the stream’s head, and with much complaint called on his mother thus: “O mother, mother Cyrene, who dwell in this flood’s depths, why, from the gods’ glorious line – if indeed, as you say, Thymbraean Apollo is my father – did you give me birth, to be hated of the fates? "

wikisource - "The shepherd Aristaeus fled from Peneian Tempe, his bees lost, they say, by sickness and scarcity, and stood sad by the holy spring of the river-head, and with many a complaint called thus upon her who bore him. Mother, Cyrene mother, who dwellest here deep beneath the flood, why hast thou borne me in the gods' illustrious line—if indeed my father is he whom thou sayest, Apollo of Thymbra—to be the scorn of doom? or whither is thy love for me swept away? why didst thou bid me aspire to heaven?"

gutenberg - "So runs the tale, by famine and disease,

Mournful the shepherd Aristaeus stood

Fast by the haunted river-head, and thus

With many a plaint to her that bare him cried:

"Mother, Cyrene, mother, who hast thy home

Beneath this whirling flood, if he thou sayest,

Apollo, lord of Thymbra, be my sire,

Sprung from the Gods' high line, why barest thou me

With fortune's ban for birthright? Where is now

Thy love to me-ward banished from thy breast?

O! wherefore didst thou bid me hope for heaven?"

Post 1:

According to a 2009 study, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is characterized by a rapid loss of adult worker bees, after the US experienced “large-scale, unexplained losses of managed honey bee colonies” (Engelsdorp et al., 2009). What makes this modern discovery fascinating is that Virgil had described a similar condition in his Georgics, which was published in 29 B.C.E. According to a translation by John Dryden, Virgil cautions his readers in lines 156 through 170 of Book Four, where he warns about a colony’s tendency to “idly stray” (Dryden, 525). Although his warnings are similar to what scientists today would classify as CCD, Virgil’s teachings according to Dryden’s translation, are written in a way that makes Dryden’s interpretation more focused on Virgil’s political commentary rather than his ideas for healthy beekeeping. Compared with later translations, John Dryden’s translation is not as effective at conveying Virgil’s themes of sustainability because of his use of strong imagery when describing the colony’s behavior and the metaphors he uses to describe the bees themselves.

In Dryden’s translation, Virgil uses striking political imagery when describing the behavior of a dying colony, which distracts from his instructions on proper beekeeping. According to Dryden, Virgil claims that a defunct colony is the result of swarms that are too “eager of their play” and “loathe their empty hives,” and that he commands his readers to “Restrain the wanton fugitives, and take / A timely care to bring the truants back,” (Dryden, 525). By describing the worker bees as “fugitives” and “truants,” he uses negative imagery to describe a naturally occurring phenomenon, which implies that it is the intention of the bees to leave the colony. Other translations are less harsh in their use of imagery, and instead portray the bees as a force of nature that can be molded by people, rather than having them act analogous to humans themselves. For example, Mackail’s 1934 translation claims that disappearing colonies are the result of bees that “fly aimlessly and play in the sky,” and that the reader must “stop their light-minded and idle game” (Mackail 340). Through his use of language, the reader gets the impression that colonies disappearing are a natural occurrence, and that their movements are random. This is a stark contrast to Dryden’s interpretation, which describes their actions as calculated and driven by hate. Mackail’s translation serves almost as a reminder to the reader that the hives need to be tended to because of their random nature and treats them like a resource that needs to be managed. Dryden, however, warns the reader that the bees, like people, are malicious and need to be controlled by a wise ruler, or in this case, the beekeeper. Although other translations also share Dryden’s negative imagery when describing the bees, Dryden goes further with his political interpretation of beekeeping.

Dryden compounds his strong imagery with the use of metaphor, to further prove his idea that Virgil was writing this section on political commentary instead of sustainability. In his specific instructions for the reader when handling a defunct colony, he claims that the reader must remove the wings of “their high-flying arbitrary kings: / At their command the people swarm away; / Confine the tyrant, and the slave will stay,” (Dryden 525). Although he only described the bees with human-like qualities earlier, here he explicitly states that the colony is like a group of people, and that their errant behavior is the result of improper leadership of a tyrant, which the reader must correct by removing his wings. Not only that, but he also makes the choice to describe the kings as “arbitrary,” and uses the words “swarm” and “slave” to describe both bees and people. Contrast this with Fairclough’s translation, which tells the reader to “tear from the monarchs their wings; while they tarry, no one will dare to go forth aloft,” (Fairclough, 1916). In this translation, Fairclough uses the ambiguous term “monarchs,” which could either refer to the king or queen of the hive, as opposed to Dryden who used the plural “kings,” which later became the singular “tyrant.” This implies that Dryden believed that Virgil was writing this section in response to a specific male ruler at the time who is leading his people astray, which is drastically different from Fairclough’s interpretation, which again implies that the bees can be contained through proper care by an observant and resourceful beekeeper.

Even though Dryden did convey Virgil’s message on how to properly manage a colony in this small section of Book Four, his use of strong negative imagery and metaphors to describe the colony and its behavior distracts from the overall message of sustainability and proper animal care. Instead, Dryden has made the section more focused on politics and human nature rather than instruction on proper beekeeping. Although both translations from Fairclough and Mackail predate the time when the proper terminology for a disappearing colony was developed, they both take care to describe the bees as animals to be cared for, and not people to be ruled over.